INDIA (LANGUAGES.) 



57 





privileges which those of Holland and of England 

 enjoyed. The company was to have a capital of 

 15,000,000 of livres. The island of Madagascar, at 

 the entrance of the Indian sea and near the African 

 coast, favourably situated for Trade with Africa, 

 Persia, Arabia, and India, was chosen for the central 

 point of their new establishments. But, in five years, 

 the company was so reduced by bad management, 

 and by the faithlessness of agents, that it ceded its 

 possessions to the government. Things went on no 

 better, and, in two years, all the French who had 

 remained at Madagascar were massacred. In the 

 mean while, instead of Surat in Guzerat, where the 

 French had first deposited their goods, they chose 

 the then unimportant village of Pondicherry, which 

 soon after became a considerable city. During the 

 seventeenth century, the commerce of the French did 

 not flourish in India. The defects of the system of 

 administration, military disasters, and the encroach- 

 ments of the government, prevented the extension 

 of the colonies, and some but just begun were im- 

 mediately abandoned. The company finally gave 

 up its privileges (which had been renewed in 1714), 

 to the merchants of St Malo. Under the administra- 

 tion of cardinal Fleury, order and activity were first 

 introduced into these commercial enterprises, when 

 the brothers Orri and Fulvy took the direction of 

 them. Pondicherry soon recovered from its decline, 

 and the Isle de France, which the French had pos- 

 sessed since 1720, admirably situated as a station for 

 Indian commerce, soon became flourishing (1735) 

 under the wise government of Bourdonnaye. The 

 colony of Chandernagore, on the Ganges, prospered 

 under the management of Dupleix. French ships 

 navigated all the Eastern seas, where a lucrative 

 commerce could be expected. In the naval war 

 between the English and French (1745 47), the 

 latter maintained their possessions in India with great 

 valour, although they received but little support from 

 Europe; but, after the peace of 1748, their power rose 

 to its height by their influence on the wars of the 

 Indian princes. They obtained large possessions on 

 the coasts of Golconda, Orissa, and Coromandel, which 

 were, however, too much separated to give each 

 other mutual support. During the war with England 

 (1755 63), the French gradually lost every thing in 

 India. The peace restored to them only Pondicherry 

 and Mahe, and gave them three small factories in 

 Bengal, with weak garrisons. Since this time, they 

 have lost and regained Pondicherry several times, 

 and hold it by the peace of Paris, of May 30, 1814. 

 The British are now the ruling commercial nation in 

 India. Upon the foundation laid there, as we have 

 related, in the seventeenth century, has arisen the 

 proud edifice of their power; and, since 1702, the 

 funds of all the smaller companies which before had 

 been formed, were united with those of the East 

 India company. See East India Companies. 



Indian Languages. If the religious systems of 

 the natives of India, and the high antiquity of their 

 traditions, were not a sufficient proof that India is 

 truly Medyama, Medhya-Dehsa (the central land), 

 and its inhabitants a primitive people, a survey 

 of the languages of the country would render it 

 evident. Although the missionary Henry Roth, in 

 1644, and the Jesuit Hanzelben, in 1699, engaged 

 in this study, it is only since 1790 that it has been 

 more thoroughly investigated by Paolino, Sir W. 

 Jones, Wilkins, Forster, Carey, Marshman, Wilson, 

 Colebrooke, Ward, Marsden, Bopp, and others. 

 According to an Indian treatise on rhetoric, given 

 by Colebrooke, there are four leading languages : 

 Sanscrit, Pracrit, Paisachi or Apadhransa and Ma- 

 gailhi or Misra. As those double appellations are 

 founded on different passages of that treatise, Cole- 



brooke considers the Apadhransa the same as the 

 Magadhi, and the Paisachi and Misra as one; so 

 that, in reality, the Sanscrit, the Pracrit, and the 

 Magadhi are the only leading languages. But, as 

 even English critics have remarked, the passage 

 quoted does not seem to have justice done it, be- 

 cause Apadhransa, like Misra, must be, even accord- 

 ing to fais explanation, a kind of mixed language or 

 jargon. 



I. The Sanscrit, called also Gronthon, from Grand- 

 ha, book, is the holy language of the Bramins and of 

 books. It is a dead language, but was probably 

 once spoken; it is wonderfully perfect in its con- 

 struction, and extremely copious. Its alphabet is 

 called Devanagari, divine alphabet, because it is said 

 to have had its origin from the gods, whose language 

 it is; it consists of fifty letters. It has three genders, 

 a dual like the Greek, conjugations numbered accord- 

 ing to the vowel or consonant endings, seven cases, 

 instead of pronouns, after nouns, and abundance of 

 particles. Its flourishing period was at the court of 

 Vicramaditya, rajah of Benares, in the last century 

 before the Christian era, where the celebrated poet 

 Calydas lived, the author of Sacontala, or the Fatal 

 Ring, and of the Megha Duta, or the Cloud of Mes- 

 sage. In this language are also written the old 

 sacred books, the Vedas. The father of Sanscrit 

 grammar is Panini, whose name occurs in the Indian 

 theogony, and to whom are attributed the Sutras, or 

 short grammatical precepts; although he himself re- 

 fers to predecessors, as Samkyn, Gargyn, Casyapa, 

 Galava, Sacatayana, &c. But his system is very 

 artificial. His work was improved by another an- 

 cient philosopher, Catugayana, in his Varticas, ex- 

 plained by Patanjali,a mythological personage in the 

 form of a serpent, in a work entitled Mahabhashia, 

 which again received additions from Caiyata, and from 

 an unknown person in the work entitled Casica 

 Vritti. This last work is highly esteemed, and gave 

 rise to the commentary Padamanjari, by Haradatta 

 Misra. A second grammar is Ramachandra's Pra- 

 criyacaumudi. Modern ones have been written by 

 Wilkins and Colebrooke. The Amara cosha, or the 

 Treasure of Amara Singa, who lived before the 

 Christian era, is a dictionary of the Sanscrit. A 

 supplement has been given by Medinicar, in his work 

 Medini. Viswapracasa by Maheswara, is a second 

 dictionary : Haravali, by Purushottama, a third. 

 There are many others, as by Ilelagudhu, P'achespati 

 the Dharanicosha, Bhattoji's Siddhanta caumtedi, 

 Praeriga caumudi. A Sanscrit press was established 

 at Calcutta in 1808. Sir William Jones, the learned 

 president at Calcutta, to whom the cultivation of 

 Oriental literature is so much indebted, was well 

 acquainted with the Sanscrit. It may be called the 

 fundamental language, as it contains the original and 

 fundamental sounds of all the European languages, 

 and not merely in a superficial resemblance; so that 

 by means of it are manifested that great fellowship 

 and affinity, by virtue of which all languages form 

 one great growth of the mind. 



II. The Pracrit, as the common language, com- 

 prehends the various dialects used in writing and 

 social intercourse. Ten are named by Colebrooke, 

 to which, however, should be added the Penjabi and 

 Brija Bhasha. They are spoken in the fertile pro- 

 vinces of Hindoostan and Deccan, by the 1. Sares- 

 wata, a people on the banks of the river of this 

 name, which flows through Penjab. This dialect is 

 especially used in dramas and poems. 2. The 

 Kanyacubjas, whose capital was Canoge. It seems 

 to be the present Hindi or Hincloostanee, except that 

 the latter contains Persian and Arabic words. These 

 two dialects are written with the Devanagari alpha- 

 bet. 3, The Gauras of Bengal, whose capital was 



